It's disappointing that the Supreme Court denied a request to temporarily block an onerous new abortion law in Texas from taking effect while a federal appellate court determines whether the law is constitutional. The high court's decision could force as many as a third of the abortion clinics in Texas to close, creating a hardship for thousands of women seeking to terminate their pregnancies. The Supreme Court's decision was the wrong one. Now supporters of abortion rights must turn their attention back to the appellate court, which we hope will declare the underlying law unconstitutional.

The battle over abortion continues to rage, and both sides got good news this week. In a win for antiabortion forces Tuesday, an ideologically split Supreme Court refused, 5-4, to stop the implementation of a Texas law aimed at squeezing abortion providers out of the state by requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. Doctors don't need admitting privileges; abortions are among the safest medical procedures performed today. Any emergency room physician is capable of handling a post-abortion complication.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The nation's first citywide ballot initiative that would ban abortion after 20 weeks was trailing in early returns Tuesday night. Among 50,000 early and absentee ballots, about 56% opposed the proposal and 44% supported it. There was no way to know whether those returns would be representative of the full turnout in New Mexico's largest city, however. Polls closed in Albuquerque at 7 p.m., but news reports showed that people were still waiting in line to cast ballots.

Albuquerque voters resoundingly rejected an antiabortion initiative Tuesday that would have banned the procedure after 20 weeks, with record-breaking turnout for a special election. The nation's first citywide measure to limit abortion lost by nearly 10 percentage points, about 55% to 45%. More than 87,000 voters cast ballots, including 50,000 who voted early or absentee. In all, about a quarter of the city's approximately 360,000 registered voters participated, a record for a special election, officials said.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for Texas to enforce a strict new abortion regulation that opponents say prevents a third of the state's clinics from performing the procedure. The court, in a 5-4 vote, split along ideological lines in turning down an appeal to block the law that abortion rights advocates challenged as unconstitutional. The measure, adopted by Texas lawmakers in July, requires that abortion providers have a doctor on their staffs who has admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic.

ALBUQUERQUE - A high-desert city in one of the poorest states in the nation has become the abortion debate's latest battlefield and a testing ground for whether abortion limits can be imposed on the local level. Early voting is underway in Albuquerque for an election Tuesday, which will decide whether to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Although similar bans have been passed by state legislatures, New Mexico's largest city is believed to be the first municipality in the country to place such an initiative on a ballot.

Who has had an abortion? In an intriguing cover story, New York Magazine decided to answer that question with the names, faces and accounts of 26 women from varied backgrounds who have had the procedure. As New York Magazine points out, about 1.2 million unplanned pregnancies are ended by abortion each year. According to the Guttmacher Institute - a research institute that supports reproductive rights - 3 in 10 American women will have abortions by the time they are 45. Abortion is legal and pervasive and, still, many women are reluctant to talk about their own personal experiences.

HOUSTON - In a U.S. Supreme Court filing Tuesday , Texas officials defended their right to enforce the state's new abortion restrictions, arguing that they protect public health and would not significantly block women's access to abortion. Last week, Planned Parenthood and others opponents of new Texas abortion restrictions appealed to the Supreme Court to reinstate an injunction blocking portions of the law concerning doctors' admitting privileges. The appeal was filed with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who gave state officials until Tuesday to file a response.

WASHINGTON - For the second time in two weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a ruling that strikes down a major abortion regulation from Oklahoma. The justices on Tuesday turned down the state's attempt to reinstate a law that would have required pregnant women to undergo an ultrasound test and hear about the size and possible heartbeat of the fetus. Last year, the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down the state's ultrasound law on the grounds it put an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion.

WASHINGTON - For the second week in a row, the Supreme Court let stand a ruling that strikes down a major abortion regulation from Oklahoma, disappointing abortion foes who had hoped conservative justices would impose new limits on a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy. The justices Tuesday turned down Oklahoma's appeal seeking to revive a law that would have required pregnant women to undergo an ultrasound and hear about the fetus' size and possible heartbeat. Last week, the court dismissed the state's appeal of a second law that would have prohibited doctors from prescribing a combination of two drugs commonly used to induce abortion in the early weeks of pregnancy.